Chapter 32
Kolton
Taking down Beckett Giles and Calvin Hobson was a lot more anticlimactic than I anticipated.
Ethan and I preceded the Feds into the restaurant where the two men were dining together, to question them about the tracking devices they planted on Sloane.
With one look at me, Beckett threw his hands up in the air and promptly started blubbering that he only did it because Calvin told him to.
The Feds couldn’t get Beckett to stop talking—confessing everything from the illegal stalking to a long list of all the times he cheated on Sloane. He even threw in the names of a few other actresses Calvin was stalking and then confessed to an unsolved hit and run from nine years ago.
The only thing Calvin said was “Shut the fuck up!” about a thousand times. But between Beckett’s blubbering and his offer of physical evidence documenting their crimes, Calvin’s silence didn’t matter that much.
The worst part of the whole trip was being away from Sloane. Lee had told me before I left that I was lucky he wasn’t canning my ass and if I messed this trip up, it didn’t matter if he lost Sloane’s business, I would be without a job.
Though he hadn’t come out and said it directly, Lee insinuated that I needed to focus, and I couldn’t do that if I was calling and talking to Sloane. I hated that most of all. Being without her, after having uninterrupted access to her for weeks, was hard to get used to.
Back in Chicago, Ethan drove us through the city as I directed him to my house. I had no idea where Sloane was—only knew that Drea was guarding her while I was gone—and I was itching to open my phone and call her as I waited for him to pull over out front.
Ethan chuckled quietly as he put his car in park. “I was going to suggest we go out for drinks to celebrate our success, but I can see you’re itching to get home,” he said, gesturing toward my phone, which I was tapping against my knee.
Giving him a sheepish grin, I set the device in my lap. “Yeah. I should. I mean, we should. Some other time. I wanted to—”
He chuckled again. “No need to explain. You got a girl to check in on. I understand.”
I dipped my head, hiding my smile. “What about you?” I asked, glancing back up at him. “You got a girlfriend? Married?”
He was quiet for a moment as his gaze drifted over the street in front of us. Then he shook his head and let out a breath. “No. Haven’t found that special someone yet.” He looked over at me. “You did good out there, kid. When Lee told me you were new to this, I was worried.”
“You thought I’d fuck it up?”
He let out a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, something like that. But you didn’t. You did everything right. Never once felt like I was babysitting you.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “That’s good, I guess.”
“It’s more than good. You’re a natural at this, Kolton.”
“Can you tell Lee that?” I muttered under my breath.
“I’m pretty sure he already knows.” He clapped my shoulder with his hand. “Anyway. I’ll let you get going. See you around.”
“Thanks man. See ya.” I got out and grabbed my bag from the back seat.
As I lugged it up to my front door, I tried to picture Sloane here, at my house.
It was small—not even as big as her condo.
The thought of her here reminded me that she was so far out of my league, she might as well have been on another planet.
But that thought made my chest hurt, and the need to be with her was so strong I couldn’t think of anything else.
When I slid my key into the lock on the front door, though, all thoughts of Sloane were pushed to the side.
The lock turned easier than it should have.
The door was already unlocked. Immediately, I was on guard.
My shoulders tensed as I reached to unzip my bag.
Before I could get my hand on my gun, my front door swung open.
“Kolton!” Sloane was there, her long, dark hair pulled up in a ponytail, her brown eyes shining as her smile stretched from ear to ear. “Baby, I’m so glad you’re home!”
As she lunged forward, I pulled her against me, wrapping my arms around her as she encircled my neck with hers. I breathed her in, sucking in a lungful of lavender and vanilla that calmed my racing heart.
Inside my house, Drea and Joss stood, smiling, with drinks in their hands. “Welcome home, Kolton!” Joss shouted, raising her glass in the air. “And surprise!”
Drea rolled her eyes and laughed. “Yes. Surprise. We broke into your house.” She turned a glare across the room. “I told you he’d go for his gun.”
“It’s fine!” Van’s voice came from somewhere inside. “He wouldn’t shoot his friends. Would you, Kolton?”
He popped his head around the door and grinned. I laughed, squeezed Sloane a little tighter, then stepped inside.
“You’re lucky you put Sloane in front of me first.” Sloane released her grip around my neck, and I lowered her to the floor. “Otherwise, we might have found out.”
Van scoffed and pulled his hands to his chest. “Why, I never—”
“You never shut up and get out of the way?” Rylan said as he stepped up beside Van.
“Hey!” I reached to shake his hand—it was the first time I’d seen him without crutches or a cane since he got shot earlier in the year. “How’s it going?”
“Can’t complain too much,” he said, a playful scowl on his face that he directed at Van.
Rylan stepped back and I reached to shake Van’s hand, only to catch movement out of the corner of my eye. Lee stepped into view, followed by Weston, Zane Maxwell, Cael Waldeberg, and—
“Ethan?” I looked around, finding nearly every one of my coworkers. “What’s going on?”
Ethan raised a bottle of beer and grinned. “Figured we could have those drinks after all.”
My boss pushed through the room toward me as Sloane closed the door behind me. He extended his arm and took my hand.
“Welcome home, Kolton. Ethan told me you did a great job out in LA. When Joss overheard”—he looked at her out of the corner of his eye—“she thought we should have a little celebration. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, not at all.” I glanced around my usually empty house, now filled to the brim with some of my favorite people in the world. “This is great!”
I shook hands with Cael, then got pulled into a conversation with Weston and Zane about their client, Mia—the twenty-year-old daughter of Illinois State Representative Caroline Sterger. Sloane held onto my arm as Weston regaled us with a story about their last time going out with Mia.
“So she’s rushing to the restroom to throw up,” Weston said, giving his partner’s shoulder a shove, “and Zane’s running after her, and I’m like, nope! I’m out! Call me when it’s over!”
Zane shook his head, laughing right along with Weston. “He’s always doing that to me. I’ve never seen someone with such a weak stomach.”
“It’s not weak!”
Zane raised a dark brow. “Tell that to your ex-wife.”
“Hey! Just because Tori has a stomach lined with steel does not mean I’m weak. That woman could swim in raw sewage and not have a problem.”
My stomach lurched and bile threatened to creep into my throat. I cleared it, trying to get that image out of my head. “Nope. That’s good. Enough sewage talking, thank you very much.”
Sloane leaned closer, running her hand up my stomach to my chest, oblivious to what that thought did to me. “Please tell me you didn’t back out of Zalea’s diaper changes?”
The color drained from Weston’s face, leaving his tanned skin looking a little green. “Please—” He shook his head.
“Oh, boy.” Zane grabbed his partner’s arm. “Kolton, where’s your bathroom?”
“Oh!” Sloane glanced up at me, a grimace cutting across her pretty face. She stood on her tiptoes and smacked a kiss to my lips. “I’ll show him. And I’ll bring us back some drinks.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, even as she gripped Weston’s arm and started directing him toward the bathroom.
“Of course! I’ll be right back.”
When she was gone, Zane shook his head, smiling. “You see what I have to put up with?”
Thinking back to the first few weeks with Sloane, before she and I had gained any sort of comfort with each other, I told him, “It must be nice having someone to talk to when you’re out with your client.”
He ducked his head. I could just see the corner of his lips tilt up. “Yeah. This can be a lonely job. Having someone to talk to definitely helps.”
“You want someone to talk to?” Van interrupted, lifting his arms out to his sides. “I’m right here.”
“Van!” Drea and Joss both said at the same time.
Everyone laughed, no one more than me when Rylan started ribbing Van, teasing him that being alone on a job didn’t matter for someone like him.
Van had reconnected with Drea, whom he’d known since they were kids, on a job earlier in the year. He’d kept it a secret from all of us—he had to, really, considering she was the FBI agent who’d been investigating Lee and his company for some rumors that got out of hand.
Rylan, on the other hand, had kept his marriage to Joss a secret. Something I was still trying to get used to.
Joss smiled at Rylan, leaning in to get a kiss, and my mind wandered to Sloane. It seemed like she got along well with my friends. Like she actually enjoyed being here—with me and around them.
It seemed like she’d been gone an awful long time.
I turned to scan the room, only to hear a loud noise coming from the kitchen, like something slamming a little too hard into a cupboard. No one else seemed to notice, but my thoughts spiraled and drove me that way to look.
What I found had my heart rocketing upward. Pressure built in my chest as I grasped at my throat, trying to loosen whatever was choking me so I could breathe.
“What… You… Kendra?”
My sister stood in my kitchen, her back against the counter with her arm wrapped tightly around Sloane’s waist. But worse was the chef’s knife she held against her throat.
At the sound of her name, my sister’s attention whipped up. The minute she saw me, she tightened her grip, tugging Sloane backward and pressing the knife into her flesh.